An enjoyably original tale: part steampunk, part horror, and part fantastical commentary on the effects of human-generated...
In a fantasy set in a surreal world of pipes and plungers, the fates of two young women intertwine.
Plunger in hand, 19-year-old Seg leaves the Orphanage, the only home she has known, to fulfill her destiny as a Plumbess, adept in the mysteries of Plumbing. This is real plumbing but with a mind-boggling twist. The massive Orphanage trains waifs (their origins are cloudy) in the intricacies of sewage treatment, pipework, and drains and tells them how to clean up filth and keep water flowing before sending them out to serve hapless humanity and powerful Pipe Lords. Plungers are weapons, divining rods, obstetric tools, and readers and destroyers of souls. Drains respond to a Plumbess’ power in arresting and at times horrific ways: A flooded library agrees to drain itself; a drain in a sink obligingly enlarges to accommodate body parts. (This book is not for the squeamish.) Haunted by nightmares and her hatred of a fellow Plumbess named Eck (discovered as a child in a den of snakes and unable to think of herself as human), Seg finds work in the parched manor of Hope Springs, where a Baron controls the water source as a protest against corruption. Fawley’s (An Exception, 2018, etc.) novel is a unique and audacious take on fantasy worldbuilding despite introducing its vision of Plumbing sorcery with a weighty, enigmatic solemnity that may induce head-scratching and a disinclination to read further. (The book’s larger fault is its abrupt ending, intended perhaps to signal a sequel but giving the impression that a page is missing.) Fortunately, patience will be rewarded for those seeking wildly imaginative and thought-provoking storytelling. Eck serves a wealthy Pipe Lord whose towering, water-rich Manor is capped by a permanent storm and wrapped in a web of pipework that captures “the very moisture from the sky.” Disturbing wrongness there (the Dry Princess will haunt readers) will push Eck to untold feats of Plumbing, spark a profound sacrifice, and change Seg’s life as a Plumbess forever.
An enjoyably original tale: part steampunk, part horror, and part fantastical commentary on the effects of human-generated droughts and floods and the connection between civilization and proper drainage.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72094-510-9
Page Count: 244
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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